Complaint:
Who was at the empty tomb? Mary Magdalene? Was it Mary Magdalene and the other Mary? Or was it Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome? Is there a contradiction between Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1, and John 20:1?
Response:
The questioner didn’t mention Luke’s account. Luke doesn’t give any specific names but mentions a group of women who had come with Jesus from Galilee who took note of where His body was laid (23:55), prepared spices and kept the Sabbath (23:56), and then returned to the tomb early in the morning on the first day of the week (24:1-3). We do not know the size of the group of women Luke refers to.
Mark mentioned a group of women: “…Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome…” (Mark 16:1). Was this the entirety of the group of women present or did Luke perhaps name the most prominent among them, and leave others unnamed? Mark’s mention of these three does not exclude the possibility of other women being present.
But Matthew only mentions two of these women, “…Mary Magdalene and the other Mary…” (Matthew 28:1). However, in Matthew 27:55-56, the gospel writer said, “…many women who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to Him, were there looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.” He acknowledged the presence of multiple women and named some, including Mary, Mary, and Zebedee’s wife. Why then, in Matthew 28:1 does he only mention the two Marys? I don’t know why he didn’t mention Salome, but the absence of her name in his account doesn’t mean she was not there, nor does it make his account contradict Luke’s account.
The apostle John focused directly on Mary in John 20, not just her presence at the tomb (v 1), but also her interaction with the angels (v 11-13), with the Lord Himself (v 14-17), and her reporting these things to the apostles (v 18). John’s focus on Mary does not mean the other women did not go to the empty tomb. Rather, his focus on Mary is because of her interactions throughout the context.
John didn’t say whether Mary the mother of James or Salome were at the tomb or not. Matthew didn’t tell us whether Salome was at the tomb or not. There is a difference between not acknowledging someone’s presence and saying someone was not present. Neither writer stated these women were not present, whereas Mark tells us they were. Though the amount of detail in the accounts differs, they are not contradictory.
Two or more people can comment on the same event, providing slightly different information, and it not be a contradiction. If I tell my wife that Person A was at the meeting this afternoon, and she hears from another friend that both Person A and Person B were at the meeting, it does not invalidate my statement or stand in contradiction to it, unless I said Person B was not there. Why did I focus on Person A and not Person B? Perhaps I know Person A better. Maybe Person A said or did something significant at the meeting. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. My acknowledgement of Person A’s presence but failure to mention Person B’s presence is not contradictory. The same is true with the report of the women at the empty tomb by the gospel writers.
There is no contradiction.
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